Various types of computing devices are increasingly being used to communicate and to access remote information, such as via the World Wide Web (the “Web”) over the Internet and via communication networks of information service providers (e.g., a private telephone network of a telephone service provider, such as a cell phone network or a landline network, or a cable network of a cable system operator), including various types of personal digital media devices (including, for example, personal computers, cellular telephones and other types of handheld devices, specialized digital media player or presentation devices, an Internet-enabled television device, etc.) and other devices. The Web has also become a medium used to search for, shop for and order items (such as products, services and/or information) that are for purchase, rent, lease, license, trade, evaluation, sampling, subscription to, etc. In many circumstances, a user can visit the Web site of a Web merchant (or a “Web store”) or otherwise interact with an online retailer or electronic marketplace that provides one or more items, such as to view information about the items, give an instruction to place an order for one or more items, and provide information needed to complete the purchase (e.g., payment and shipping information). After receiving an order for one or more items, a Web merchant then fulfills the order by providing the ordered items to the indicated recipient. Some product items may be available to be delivered electronically to a recipient (e.g., music files streamed, downloaded or otherwise sent over the Internet), while other product items (e.g., paperback books) may instead be delivered through physical distribution channels (e.g., shipment via a governmental postal service or private common carrier). Similarly, some service items may be provided electronically (e.g., providing email service), while others may be provided physically (e.g., performing cleaning services at the purchaser's house).
One area of commerce of increasing popularity involves providing various types of content to consumers in digital form, with the digital content then able to be used by the consumers on consumer devices that provide corresponding capabilities. For example, consumers are increasingly purchasing or otherwise obtaining (e.g., through a subscription or “rental” service) digital music and other digital media (e.g., MP3 song files, Windows Media Access files, digital audio book, digital music videos, etc.), such as for download and later playback to the consumer on one or more appropriate presentation devices (e.g., a personal computer, a portable digital music player device having flash memory and/or a local hard disk, etc.). Digital music files and other digital media files may be permanently downloaded by consumers to personal computers from one or more online music services or stores (e.g., Cingular Wireless' mMode Music Store, Apple Computer's iTunes Music Store, RealNetworks' RealPlayer Music Store, Napster.com, etc.) or otherwise stored on the personal computers (e.g., by copying the music from a music CD or DVD loaded in an appropriate drive of the computer), and may then optionally be loaded onto digital music player devices or other digital media player devices by the consumers (e.g., via a physical cable between a player device and a personal computer). For some fee-based online music services, each music file may be individually purchased for a specified fee and then played by the consumer as desired (e.g., on the computer or other personal digital media device to which the file was downloaded or streamed, or on other portable player devices, and without restrictions on the number of times or the amount of time for which the music file may be accessed). For other fee-based online music services, a consumer may access music files using a subscription to the music service that allows the consumer to stream and/or conditionally download and use a pre-set or unlimited number of music files, but with the music files usable only under specified conditions, such as only while the subscription continues to be valid, and in some situations only on specified types of devices that allow the continued subscription validity to be verified (e.g., devices using Microsoft Corporation's Janus Windows Media DRM (“Digital Rights Management”) 10 technology). In a similar manner, consumers may load and use various other types of non-executable digital media (e.g., videos, photos and other images, e-books and other textual information, etc.) on corresponding digital media player devices (e.g., digital photo display devices, digital video player devices, e-book reader devices, etc.).
Although consumers' ability to interact with online media stores in order to download and use various types of digital media provides a variety of benefits, various problems exist. For example, some problems result from consumers who use multiple distinct devices (e.g., a mobile device and a personal computer) for interacting with online media stores and/or for presenting digital media items, such as problems in distributing digital media items to the various devices, as well as in coordinating other information and functionality provided to the consumers' devices. Moreover, various problems can result due to limited capabilities of some devices that such consumers may use as part of the interactions, such as mobile devices with wireless communications capabilities (e.g., a cellular telephone, a Wi-Fi-enabled handheld computer, a laptop, etc.) that may have limited communication capabilities (e.g., slow connection speeds, intermittent connections, etc.), as well as other types of limited capabilities such as limited display capabilities (e.g., a small display size, limited abilities to display certain resolutions and colors, limited abilities to display certain types of information, etc.), limited DRM capabilities (e.g., based on authorizations and/or permissions that restrict wireless or over-the-air delivery of selected digital media items), and/or limited capabilities for playing or otherwise presenting digital media items (e.g., an inability to play streamed or otherwise sent digital music files). Such limited capabilities of such mobile devices may make it difficult for consumers to download and present digital media items, as well as to discover (e.g., search for and/or browse for) such items and to purchase or otherwise order such items.
Accordingly, it would be beneficial to provide capabilities to facilitate performing interactions between online media stores and consumers' devices in such a manner as to minimize such difficulties, and to perform delivery of digital media items to consumer devices in manners that provide various benefits to consumers and to distributors of the digital media items, as well as other described capabilities.